


a party when the funeral ends

by IzzyAguecheek



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Sad, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, everything is sad and everything hurts, spoilers for TDT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24428011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyAguecheek/pseuds/IzzyAguecheek
Summary: After the events of the 4th of July, what remains of Kavinsky's pack get together to mourn - or the closest they can get to it.(or: Skov, Swan and Jiang are sad together and don't know how to Cope TM.)
Relationships: Joseph Kavinsky & Prokopenko & Swan & Skov & Jiang
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	a party when the funeral ends

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this maybe 4 or 5 years ago and for some reason never posted it on AO3 (althought a Portuguese un-edited version of it can be found [here](https://fanfiction.com.br/historia/747568/A_Party_When_The_Funeral_Ends/))..? I've been missing this fandom a lot and the Brazilian fandom of TRC is basically non existent, so I figured I'd translate it and post it here to see what happens lmao
> 
> Please let me know if I've made any mistakes! Writing in past tense is a BITCH and there is a reason I don't do it.
> 
> Title from My Chemical Romance's "Kill All Your Friends", because of obvious reasons.

Now that their alpha was dead, they should be howling. Instead, none of them managed to make a single sound.

They had gathered in the dorm room Skov and Swan shared  at Aglionby, although they usually spent most of their time avoiding the place. Now that Kavinsky was gone and Prokopenko was  _unavailable_ _–_ destroyed, damaged, Jiang couldn’t or wouldn’t think of the right word –, they had nowhere else to go. 

Skov couldn’t handle the silence for long; as soon as Jiang had shut the door behind himself, he had turned on the stereo and put on something furious and destructive at maximum volume. Now he was pacing back and forth, stopping every now and then to kick some furniture, while Swan watched him from the bed. 

Jiang, sprawled on the carpet between the two beds, reached out to grab Skov’s ankle when he walked by. 

“Would you fucking stop that?”

A sound too similar to a snarl came from Skov’s throat. Jiang could see his fingers twitching beside his body, as if trying to hold on to the air. No one had had the  guts or  the  strength of will to throw parties after the  last  4 th of July, and it was clear that spending his nights in that cubicle was driving him insane. 

“Fuck you”, he mumbled, before pulling his leg free from Jiang’s grip and going back to pacing.

Jiang and Swan exchanged a resigned look. Swan pulled Skov to the bed beside him, took the cigarette he had lit and put it between Skov’s lips. Skov didn’t complain, but he didn’t relax either. Jiang also had a cigarette, but it seemed about as interesting as latin homework at that point.  He took one last swing from the bottle of vodka they had been passing around before passing it over to Swan and watching Skov grab it from him immediately. 

They remained silent, or that’s what Jiang thought before he saw Swan’s lips moving. He reached out to turn down the stereo –  _damn it, you’re a fucking emo,_ he had told Skov when he put on the music – in time to catch the last words:

“…It’s already been a month.”

Jiang could guess what the rest of the sentence was like.  _I can’t believe it’s already been a month._ His eyes found Skov’s empty bed, where Kavinsky and Prokopenko should be, K’s hand tangled in Proko’s hair while he laughed and made fun of something some of the others had said. Yeah, he couldn’t believe it either. He couldn’t believe none of that had happened, which was stupid, because he had seen it happening, they all had. When he closed his eyes, the 4 th of July still burned behind his eyelids – a parade of white Mitsubishis, Ronan  fucking Lynch, Kavinsky falling on his knees while flames exploded above their heads  like they had finally gone to hell . He had been there. He remembered it. 

They had all been there at the funeral,  too, shoved into suits they knew weren’t necessary, and, even though none of them had talk ed to Kavinsky’s mother, Jiang remembered her, too. She had the same pale and sallow complexion as her son, the same skinny frame, and she had looked more like a corpse than K himself; her face had no expression, and her entire body had been shaking. Jiang couldn’t  even tell if she was aware of how serious the situation  was . 

They had also been to Proko’s bedroom in the hospital. There had been no parents to avoid; the three teenagers had been the only ones to visit him. The doctors had said he was in a coma, probably caused by the trauma suffered when he hit one of Kavinsky’s cars during the party, but the diagnosis seemed made up,  a fairy tale the doctors had told themselves to avoid dealing with the fact they had no idea what the fuck was happening. 

Prokopenko had always been a mystery. Years ago, he had crashed his brand new Golf. Swan had seen the car explode; later, he had told the others there was no way someone could survive that. And still, on the next day, there he was, Prokopenko, lying on the floor of Kavinsky’s basement as usual. No one had been brave enough to ask for an explanation, and no one had offered one. Somehow, it made sense that he was unconscious now,  regardless of how made-up the explanations of why were. 

And now they were there, in that damn dorm room, with the windows open to let out the smell of the cigarettes none of them wanted to smoke anymore, listening to Skov’s depressing songs. Jiang imagined Kavinsky kicking the door open, tried to think of what he’d say if he saw that scene.  _Fuck, you bitches look like you need some blow. Or some dick._ He was nice like that, good ol’ Joseph Kavinsky. Jiang hated him. Jiang missed him like hell.

Part of him was still waiting for K to walk in. He said:

“It has, though.”

Skov made a low noise in his throat, like a groan. He finally allowed himself to sink into the mattress, although that nervous energy still radiated from him in violent pulses. Jiang wondered if, without Kavinsky around to produce the mysterious drugs that calmed him and helped him set shit on fire other than himself, Skov would ever truly relax.  He had already drunk about half of the bottle of vodka, and it didn’t seem to help one bit. 

“Shit”, he said. Jiang thought that about summed it up, yeah.

“Shit”, he agreed.

With the volume of the stereo lower, the room was almost quiet in a way Kavinsky and Prokopenko would never have allowed. As usual, it was  Swan who spoke first: 

“Someone’s gonna have to keep up the tradition, you know.”

Jiang looked up at him. Swan had never had Skov’s ferocity or Prokopenko’s carelessness, but there was a dangerous tension about him, like a dam about to break. He never spoke much about what was on his mind. Prokopenko used to tell him to stop repressing his feelings, arguing he would explode if he couldn’t find an outlet  to them , all the while putting a Molotov cocktail in his hand with that demented smile of his. 

Kavinsky used to be that outlet. Now, neither Jiang nor Skov were any good for the job. The cruel truth was that, without Kavinsky, they had no idea what to do with one another.

“No one can throw a party like K”, Skov shot back. “Not even in dreams.”

Dreams. Kavinsky showed up in Jiang’s dreams, sometimes. Without thinking, he said:

“We should do it.” He felt the weight of the others’ gazes on him. “For him. One last time.”

He waited for them to tell him it wouldn’t be the last time, and wasn’t surprised when no one did. Kavinsky had brought them together, and Prokopenko had helped keeping them this way, but Jiang had no illusion they would manage to keep it up for much longer. Swan and Skov balanced each other out, and had always been together, even before Kavinsky; they would survive, or at least Jiang hoped so. Jiang had always been a lone wolf; the intimacy between the two of them made his chest hurt and he would never forgive them if they threw it away. That was what he had been looking for the whole time,  after all, as painful as it was to admit it . It was part of what had made him join Kavinsky and his pack. Intimacy. Belonging. 

He should’ve known it would end in fire  and death. He should’ve never expected it to last. Not  for him, certainly not  for Kavinsky. They both had been crashing way too fast for that.

“I can’t do it alone”, he added, his voice low. “I  _won’t_ do it alone.”

_Don’t leave me too,_ said the loud beat of his heart.  _Not now. I can’t do this again._

There was a silence so long Jiang seriously considered the possibility of leaving the dorm and never coming back. He had a full tank; that was all he needed to leave Henrietta, Kavinsky’s ghost and all that bullshit behind, and then the only place they would catch him would be in his nightmares. 

Swan was carefully examining the ceiling like it contained the answers to all the world’s mysteries. Skov got up again and went back to walking in circles around the room, and, this time, no one tried to stop him.

“Yeah”, he mumbled, sounding drunk and young and so fucking  _angry._ Skov didn’t get _sad,_ didn’t know how to, but that was the closest to it Jiang had ever heard. “We should do it.”

Him and Jiang looked at Swan, who sighed.

“Since someone has to” He seemed reluctant, but, when Skov smiled wildly at him, he smiled back, dark and promising. Of fucking course he did.  _This is for Skov and K,_ Jiang reminded himself.  _Not you. Never you._ God, he was so fucking stupid. “Alright. For K.”

“For K”, Jiang repeated. His throat was tight and the his chest was hollow, and he wasn’t sure it was his heart beating in his chest, and not some sort of fiery beast of anger and grief  that had taken his body as its new summer home . In the end, much to his surprise, it was Skov that summed up his feelings:

“I miss him”, he said, suddenly. He had stopped in the middle of the room, and his stare was like broken glass. Skov didn’t cry, he would never, but he seemed ready to punch through the window and let the shards of glass rip his hand to pieces, which was close enough for him. “Holy fuck, I miss him so fucking much.”

Jiang closed his eyes. If he concentrated enough, he could still hear Prokopenko’s laugh, the music filling the air, the sound of explosions. The image of Kavinsky falling to his knees on the dirt was engraved on the inside of his eyelids. A fallen god, he remembered thinking when he saw it,  and then later, looking at K’s pale face inside a casket .  _He was a king. Look at him now._ But then again, he supposed the same could be said of all of them.

“Me too”, he said.

Swan said nothing, because that was how he was. Jiang had no idea of what  he was thinking about.

Jiang sat up, opening his eyes. Outside, the sun was starting to go down. His cigarette had burned down  almost completely ; he threw it down and stepped on it  before it could burn his fingers , not caring about the mess  on the carpet.

“Let’s begin”, he said, suddenly eager. 

Skov’s eyes glimmered. Nobody could throw a party like Kavinsky, but he almost seemed like a fitting substitute. Even Swan opened a  lopsided smile, more vulnerable than usual.

“For K”, he repeated. Jiang nodded.

“For K.”

They would never be as good as him. They didn’t know how to live without him. But,  ultimately, they had no choice.

Once again , Jiang tried to picture Kavinsky’s reaction if he walked into the room and saw them.  _You’re all a bunch of pathetic sentimentalists,_ he would say. _Now, stop whining like a bunch of little bitches and go get me a drink._

Jiang had to agree, it  _was_ ridiculous and sentimental, but the tightness of his chest kept him from caring about much else. It wasn’t just about K now; they all needed a party. Kavinsky was gone. His pack would have to find another outlet  for the monsters hidden inside them .

For one night, Jiang promised himself, they would be kings again. 

Even if Joseph Kavinsky would be nothing for a ghost for the rest of eternity.

(Aw, man. Kavinsky would’ve been so pissed. Kavinsky would’ve been so fucking  _proud._ )

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Translating your own writing is awkward, y'all. 10/10 would recommend though.


End file.
